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On April 1, a global investment firm The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) announced that it has agreed to sell Liberty Tire Recycling (Liberty) to ECP, an investor with a decades-long reputation in the environmental and sustainable solutions sector. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021. Liberty Tire Recycling is a premier provider of tire recycling services in North America. With a network of more than 25 processing plants and flexible collection service offerings nationwide, the Company saves more than 190 million tires per year from the waste stream, recycling approximately three billion pounds of rubber for innovative, sustainable materials and products.

On March 16, 2020 Liberty Tire Recycling – the biggest tire recycling operator in the United States – announced that it acquired a premier tire removal and recycling company Lakin Tire to create a “new national footprint with best-in-class service and a commitment to sustainability.” Liberty Tire Recycling reports that is made the acquisition of Lakin Tire with support from its majority equity sponsor The Carlyle Group. Lakin, headquartered in Santa Fe Springs, California and with operations focused throughout the Western United States and the Northeast, is regarded as one of the most established and technologically advanced tire removal and recycling companies in the United States. Combined, the two companies collect over 180 million tires per year and recycle approximately 2.6 billion pounds of rubber into innovative, sustainable products. Thomas Womble, CEO of Liberty Tire, will continue to lead the combined business, while key leaders of Lakin, including Bob Lakin and Sean Lakin, will take on expanded roles within Liberty to drive continued world-class customer service. Bob Lakin will maintain an equity ownership stake in Liberty.

With Liberty's access to tires and Bolder's technology and customer pipeline, the partnership is expected to make a meaningful impact across the globe. This November, Bolder Industries, Inc. (Bolder), a pioneer in converting end-of-life tires into sustainable carbon black (BolderBlack®), petrochemicals (BolderOilTM), steel (BolderSteelTM), and power, announced a new partnership with Liberty Tire Recycling (or "Liberty"), one of the leading providers of tire recycling services in North America. Bolder’s press release says these two world leaders in end-of-life tire solutions join forces to provide immediate circular solutions and sustainable raw materials to rubber, plastic, and petrochemical businesses.

In the recently held Recircle Awards – the globally-facing industry award event recognizing sustainable innovation, production processes, management and services within the tire retreading and recycling sectors – a U.S. based manufacturer of tire recycling machinery outperformed European its competitors for international awards program that recognizes excellence in tire recycling. ECO Green Equipment develops advanced eco-friendly and cost-efficient turnkey tire recycling systems. They recently garnered international attention for sweeping the Best Tyre Recycling Industry Supplier Award at the global Recircle Awards. The company develops both stand-alone machinery and integrated equipment to turn end-of-life tires into valuable aftermarket products. Their tire shredders and grinders can convert tire rubber into fine rubber powder for innovative high-end products, playground surfaces, athletic fields, landscaping mulch, automotive parts and tire-derived fuel.

Renowned manufacturer of high-end tire recycling equipment ECO Green Equipment makes “short list” for annual awards honoring the world’s leading innovators in tire recycling. A public vote will decide the winners. ECO Green Equipment, a global leader in cost-effective, turnkey industrial tire recycling solutions, is proud to announce that they have been named to the short list of nominees for the prestigious Global Recircle Awards, which honor innovations in the tire recycling industry.

ECO Green Equipment – industrial tire recycling solutions provider and equipment manufacturer – unveils innovative ECO Extractor 63 capable of removing steel beads from 10 mining tires per hour. The Utah-based tire recycling equipment manufacturer is continually exploring new ways to make the tire recycling process more efficient and environmentally friendly. Their products, which range from shredders and grinders to colorizers and control panels, employ the latest technology, as ECO Green reports. Now, ECO Green’s team introduces their newest innovation: the ECO Extractor 63.

A new report from the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA) shows opportunities to expand end-use tire markets and improve tire recycling rates to keep pace with annual scrap tire generation. The 15th 2021 Scrap Tire Management Report found that markets consumed 71 percent of annually generated scrap tires in 2021, down from about 76 percent reported in 2019. This decrease is due primarily to a nearly 13 percent increase in scrap tire generation, while markets to consume them increased by six percent. However, even with this small reduction, scrap tires outperform metal, glass, aluminum, plastic and paper recycling rates. Only automotive batteries and corrugated cardboard have a higher recycling rate.

For many years, tire recycling industry and business worldwide could not design economical solutions to efficiently recycle end-of-life off-the-road (OTR) tires. While OTR tires consist of high-quality natural rubber, one of the challenges in recycling them was transport. Huge size and weight of OTR tires do not allow transporting these tires easily and, as a result, these end-of-life tires used to be buried in quarries and on mining sites. Today, new technologies and innovations in engineering design give us hope that OTR tire recycling will soon become a common practice.

In the end of this article we make an estimation of a possible annual market size of recovered carbon black, modestly assuming virgin carbon black substitution rate at 20%. Hint: numbers suggest that recovered carbon black production is a profitable business rich in opportunities. Traditionally Carbon Black (CB) has been used as both a reinforcing agent and filler in automobile tires. Along with better understanding of CB’s unique properties as a material, it is presently used in a much wider range of applications across a large variety of products – car tires, conveyor belts, inks, plastic pipes, rubber mats, shoe soles and so forth. Virgin CB contains only trace amounts of impurities and carbon content is very close to 100%.